Missouri Awaits

Hello Everyone! This week at the MTC flew by really fast. Its weird to think that I arrived here 13 days ago, and tomorrow I’m leaving to go to the Mission Home in St. Louis and then find out what area I will be serving the next 6 weeks. In the MTC the days are long, but the weeks short. I love being here. I actually had to say goodbye to some really great friends that I’ve grown really close to over the last 13 days. I’ve been in a district of 5 companionship, 2 going to Jackson Mississippi and left this morning.

We have been hard at work this week teaching some investigators in the TRC or Training Resource Center. These investigators are usually converts posing as them selves before they joined the church, but there are some real investigators. Me and my companion are pretty sure we had a real one this week, Johnathan. He is a baker, and gets up quite early. He hasn’t gone to school and is just working to earn money to do so. We love him because he is funny. Me and Elder Noyes we saw a change in him this week because we could see him coming close to Christ as we committed him to pray and read the Book of Mormon. He is even coming to church this Sunday!!! Same with our other investigator Michael!! He lives in Texas, and we met with him over skype. He likes Golf and is actually going to Costa Rica this weekend on a vacation. Neither one of our investigators are married or have families of their own, but we actually found out that Michael is Baptized already and is actually called to serve in the Rome Italy Mission and will be here at the MTC in 3 weeks…. Super excited for him!!! Its sort of sad that we can’t continue to meet with our investagators, but many more is coming soon!

I’m really excited to be going out in the field this week! The MTC has been great! Its a lot like a classroom where you learn, but crazy awesome! You feel the spirit in everything you do and I can’t wait to take that into the field. My favorite lesson that I had this week was actually in Priesthood. It was held with all the elders leaving this week and we talked a lot about faith. In the Book of Mormon in the book of Alma it talks about faith:

Alma 21 : And now as I said concerning faith—faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.

Sometimes we need to take that leap of faith to do things that aren’t necessarily in our comfort zone. I have seen this in my own life a lot. Heavenly Father gives us agency to choose for ourselves, but hopes that we will choose to follow him. We don’t need to have any perfect knowledge, just a hope. A witness doesn’t come till after the trial of our faith. We cannot expect ourselves to gain a testimony in anything without putting in effort. It takes our work and diligence. I promise as we have faith in Jesus Christ, that happiness will come into our lives. I’ve put the work in, and I continue to do so, and thats why I’m here serving a mission. The Restored Gospel is true and I know our Heavenly Father loves with us. We cannot fully comprehend his love for us. Our whole goal as missionaries is to help people come closer to Jesus Christ. We ourselves cannot help others come close to him if we ourselves haven’t done so ourselves. Always strive to be better!